One Of The Best Features in iOS 11: Scanning Documents

One of the most useful features in Apple’s iOS 11 is found hidden inside the Notes App, a document scanner. It works really well and makes scanning documents easy.

It’s great for scanning a business card, a document you might need to sign and send via email or any piece of paper you think you might need to save for future reference.

There are some limitations, as it doesn’t do OCR (optical character recognition), maybe that will happen in a future update.

It works pretty darn well, here’s how to start using it.

How To Scan a Document on the iPhone and iPad

1. Launch the Notes App on your iPhone or iPad

2. Create a New Note

3. Tap the More button just above the Keyboard it looks like this (+).

4. Tap Scan Document from the options list. Your scan will be saved in the Notes app.

5. Line up the document

6. If the scanner doesn’t automatically scan, tap the shutter button to manually scan the document.

7. Repeat the steps above for each page you need to scan.

8. Tap Save when you are finished scanning all the pages you want to include in one document.

How To Mark Up a Scanned Document on iPhone or iPad

Now that you’ve scanned the document you may want to mark it up using the built in mark up tools that Apple provides. You can highlight, hand write, add a text box, shape or arrows. You can also add your signature right in the notes app using markup.

1. With the scanned document open (tap on the scanned item), tap the Share button in the top right hand corner.

2. Tap on the Markup Button and select the tool you want to use.

3. If you want to use shapes, a text box or signature, tap the (+) to access more options.

4. Markup your document

5. Tap Done when you are finished.

How to Convert a Scanned Document to a PDF

1. With the scanned document open, tap the share button in the upper right hand corner.

2. Tap the Create PDF button

3. Tap the Share button bottom left hand corner

4. Select an app to share the PDF to.

How to Send a Scanned Document via Email

You don’t need to convert the scanned document to a PDF to send it. In fact the scan itself becomes a PDF, when you share it.

1. With the scanned document open, tap on the Share button.

2. Select the email app to share the document.

3. Complete the process by sending it.

How To Delete the Scanned Document

If you’ve scanned a page twice and would like to delete it or the image isn’t great and you want to try again without having to rescan the whole document.

1. Open the scanned document, swipe to the right or left to find the page you want to delete.

2. Tap on the Trash button.

3. Tap Delete scan.

This will allow you to only delete the specific page you’ve selected.

Once you start using the document scanner let me know how it works for you and if you have any questions drop them in the comments section below.

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